According to Bloomberg, Krafton, the company behind PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) is about to go public, and its current estimated valuation is at $27 billion ahead of the IPO. This is based on a new Bloomberg report that shared the company's plans to go public later this year.
While PUBG's rise was meteoric, it's creator didn't have an easy road. Kim Chang-han, who's a former child prodigy who won national coding competitions in South Korea in the 80's, had created three multiplayer games at three startup companies by 2014. All had failed, and PUBG was Chang-han's last shot at success in the gaming industry when he sold his company to Krafton, where he stayed on as an executive producer.
After persuading Brendan Greene to come on as PUBG's creative director, everything seemed to click into place. Six years later, the game has sold 70 million copies on PC and consoles (making it easily one of the best-selling games of all time) and its mobile version has reached 600 million downloads.
Now the company is going public, and it could be South Korea's biggest initial public offering (IPO) in years. Selling shares could net the company billions, and the startup could become valued up to 30 trillion won, which in American dollarydoos is $27.2 billion. Whew.
Krafton runs four game studios, of which PUBG is their crown jewel and "accounts for the vast majority of its sales and profits", with the game reaching $1.1 billion from January to the end of September 2020. Most notably among other properties, they own game developer Bluehole, which developed Tera.
It doesn't plan on stopping there either. Krafton is currently creating an animated show that will be on streaming services and a web cartoon. "Movies and dramas" are also being considered, and it appears that Krafton is just getting started on capitalizing on the incredible success of their property. There's also going to be a new battle royale mobile title that's based on PUBG releasing this year, as well as a PUBG-affiliated PC and console game coming out next year and a survival horror game coming in 2022 that will take place three centuries into the future.
